Monday, November 8, 2010

A couple of weeks ago we realised that it's compulsory to have Worker's Compensation insurance and we didn't have any. We've got it sorted out now but we should have had it from very early on. I'm not quite sure why we hadn't thought about this. I suppose we'd figured it was either something for non-office workers or that it happened automatically as part of our quarterly BAS or something.

I thought I'd mention it in case any other Australian startups out there don't have it. In NSW it's a requirement to have worker's compensation insurance once you're likely to pay your employees more than $4,500 per year. That includes the founders/directors of a startup if it's registered as a company. If you don't take out the compulsory insurance you risk being fined and if an employee in the business injures themselves at work you could be liable for their medical expenses and lost income which could well be startup destroying.